


settling dust

by michpat6



Series: aftermath [16]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, imagine proofreading could not be me, so proud of these idiots they’ve come so far, they’ve done it! they’ve spoken like two functioning human beings!, ~discussion~ part two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28846056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michpat6/pseuds/michpat6
Summary: Zelda is kissing him.
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Series: aftermath [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033743
Comments: 20
Kudos: 123





	settling dust

Zelda is kissing him.

She’s kissing him.  _She’s_ kissing  _him_.

He said he loves her, and she’s _kissing_ him.

(She’s kissing him!)

He kisses her back as best as he can, and feels her smile against his mouth.

They come apart to breathe, and the first words out of Link’s mouth are, “We should yell at each other more often.”

(How  _romantic_.)

Zelda, thankfully, laughs. “Yes, that was very productive.”

“So…” he trails off. “You love me, too?”

“Of course I do, Link,” she says. “I have for a century.”

“I thought you didn’t, at least not anymore.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because...” he swallows. “It’s like I said: I’m not your Link. I’m just some guy with amnesia and-”

“You’re not just ‘some guy with amnesia’,” she insists. “Your name is Link, and a hundred years ago you were a knight who devoted everything you had to your duty. And now, your name is Link, and you don’t have to be that knight anymore.”

(He doesn’t?)

“I don’t?”

“No,” she’s still holding his face, curling her fingertips into his cheeks. “There is no ‘my Link’, there’s only you. There’s only ever  _been_ you. The person you were a century ago, the stoic, silent Hero, that wasn’t who you really are.”

(It’s not?)

“It’s not?”

“No,” Zelda repeats. “It was who you  _thought_ you should be. Yes, you’re the Hero, and yes, you’re courageous and strong and devoted, but that’s not  _because_ you’re the Hero. It’s because that’s just who you are. You being the Hero is just-” she smiles. “A perfect coincidence.”

He’s...She thinks he’s... _perfect_?  _Him_?

“The Master Sword, it...” It showed him his past lives, his obligation as the Hero. “It would only show me so much, I thought…”

“I know,” she searches his eyes. “Which is why I’m telling you you don’t have to do your duty, anymore. The Calamity is dead, I’m free, you have no reason to be the Hero. I’m not going to force you to stay by my side and follow me everywhere unless you want to.”

“I want to,” his answer is automatic. “I don’t want to stop protecting you.”

“Okay,” she nods, finally taking her hands off his face and stepping back. “That’s a start.”

“A start to what?” he watches her pick up his chair.

Zelda walks back to her seat and sits. “Our boundaries.”

“Boundaries?” Their  _what_? “We just-You just kissed me and you want to talk  _boundaries_?”

“Without getting into another argument, yes,” she nods. “We love each other, and it’s good that we both know that, but we’re clearly not ready for this to go as fast as I’m sure we both want it to. You won’t even look at the Master Sword, and I can’t sleep because...”

She hesitates.

“Because?” Link sits back down in his seat. “Zelda, this is what we’re both frustrated with. Neither of us are good at feelings.” he reaches for her clasped hands, touches her knuckles, and smiles at her. “So be bad at feelings with me.”

Zelda swallows, and slides her hands out from under his fingertips to play with them in her lap. “I see the Calamity in the dark.”

“Like a nightmare?”

“Yes, but-” she avoids his eyes. “It’s more like a hallucination, I…I saw him- _it_ -at the Spring of Wisdom, in the form of a Gerudo male. I was praying to Hylia, I asked for her help, and it appeared. I think it’s because I was so tired, but…”

He stares at her, at her hidden, fiddling hands. “But you also think it’s something else.”

“I was trapped with it for a century,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “It taunted me, it-it showed me visions of  my  past lives, of the previous Zeldas’ failures to keep it from coming back, and of what it would do to you and to Hyrule when I eventually exhausted my power and let it go. It does…virtually the same thing in my dreams, it taunts me, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t know,” Zelda shrugs, opening her eyes. “In my nightmares it’s angry, it’s…it just wants to devour me, but at the spring it was calm. Nonchalant. More man than beast.”

The Master Sword buzzes on the floor and Link jumps, flinching.

“Your turn,” she weakly smiles. “Be bad at feelings with me.”

He takes a deep breath.

“The Master Sword shows me a lot at once,” he starts, quiet. “It gets overwhelming. I can’t tell if what I see is from a hundred years ago or from a million.”

(The falling moon, the blue woman dressed in the colors of the Master Sword, and the endless sea; Snippets of stories that don’t fit with the one he’s been told.)

“There’s too much distance between me a hundred years ago and me now,” he continues. “I can’t help but feel like two separate people.”

(Link the failed Hero or Link the amnesia-ridden foodie with a killer fashion sense? He feels like neither but, according to Zelda, he’s both.)

“I can’t pick up the Master Sword because I’m afraid that if I do, it’ll overwhelm me again,” he swallows. “I’m scared of what I’ll see.”

“I can help you with that,” Zelda says. “At least, telling the difference between a hundred years ago and your past lives. Whatever gaps in your memory you want to fill, I’ll fill them as best as I can.”

Link straightens. “Really?”

“Of course. All you have to do is ask.”

(It’s that easy? He asks her a few questions and gets all of the answers he so desperately wants?)

“How do I help you?”

She shrugs. “Honestly? I don’t know. Having you here, having you close, helps. Having a light, maybe, to keep the shadows away? It always appears in the shadows. Maybe...”

She bites her lip.

“Maybe?” he prompts.

“I need to stop pushing off my duties as the princess,” she says, reluctant. “Maybe if we get out of the house for a while, travel and meet with the different races, it’ll do us both some good. I get to see how my kingdom’s changed and you’re not trapped here with nothing to distract you from the Master Sword.”

“Zelda,” he breathes.

(She doesn’t want to be the princess yet, he can tell, purely by how she presents the idea like a last resort.)

“We have to burst this bubble at some point,” she continues softly, meeting his eyes. “It’s been two months, Link.”

(It’s a good idea. A  damn good idea, such a good idea he’s pretty sure it’ll work, but he wants to be selfish and savor their new development, be alone with her in this house forever and hide like cowards from titles like ‘Princess’ and ‘Hero’.)

He sighs. “I hate how smart you are.”

She smiles. “Well, I  _am_ blessed with divine wisdom.”

(They will never be allowed to take a break, burdened for the remainder of their lives by the completion of their impossible task and the curse that has chased her blood and his soul for millennia.)

“What...” Link reaches for her again, resting his hand palm-up on the table. “What does this...’vacation’ mean for us? What boundaries do you want?”

Swallowing, Zelda puts her fingers on his. She bends them, and he bends his. 

(His first time holding her hand. Her fingers are long, nimble, smooth, and uncalloused, the polar opposite of his. They’re also a little cold.)

He squeezes her fingers, trying to transfer his warmth, and she squeezes back.

The Master Sword hums but Link doesn’t notice, almost doesn’t care. All he can focus on is the feel of her skin on his, the way her pulse thrums in her fingertips, and the intensity of her deep green eyes.

“We take it slow,” she tells him. “We be careful with each other, and we tell each other when we’re struggling. No more hiding, no more running, no more yelling.”

“No more hiding,” he echoes. “No more running, no more yelling.”

“And-” her cheeks flush. “And I will  _ask_ to kiss you before I kiss you. It was presumptuous of me, before.”

He smiles at her. “You can kiss me whenever you want to kiss me, Zelda. You never need permission for that.”

Zelda laughs. “Likewise.”

Link makes a silent vow as she lets go of his hand, stands, and cleans up their lunch. He makes a silent vow to never hurt her again, to respect their boundaries no matter how much it may bother him down the line because, as he is right now, he’s too eager to be with her, high off the fact that she feels the same and wants to kiss him and  _will_ be kissing him again in the near future.

Link makes a silent vow to protect her from the phantom of Calamity Ganon. He makes a silent vow that the next time it appears to torture her, he  _will_ pick up the Master Sword no matter how much it bothers him and he  _will_ find a way to kill it and do so again and again and  _again,_ until it leaves her alone.

Zelda rounds the table, stands beside him, and grins.

“Yes?” Link asks, feeling himself grin back.

(He’s good at slaying demons.)

She leans down and kisses him.

“I am going to take  _full_ advantage of this, you know,” she murmurs against his lips, teasing. “You’ve given me too much power.”

He chuckles into her mouth, responding, “Oh, well.”

(He’s even better at slaying demons when they threaten the person he loves.)

Link continues kissing Zelda, unsure of if he’ll ever want to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> not me taking nine days to write 1600 words of dialogue because i was procrastinating this post-calamity zelink fic by starting to write a pre-calamity zelink fic that’ll get posted when this one is finished
> 
> could not be me nope no siree


End file.
